Portal:Wine/2008 Selected Winery archive
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January
Kendall-Jackson Vineyard Estates is a vineyard and winery, under the Kendall-Jackson brand started by the Jess Jackson family in Lakeport, California in 1974. That label now continues under the umbrella company, Jackson Family Wines, that Jackson later created.
In the 1980s, Kendall-Jackson rejected the California wine industry's trend toward vineyard-specific wine labeling. It ignored the concept of terroir in favor of blending wines from different regions to achieve desired wine characteristics. Jackson Family Wines is now a large and growing wine empire that owns many successful brands.
Their investments in wine have reached beyond US borders, now owning wineries in Italy (Tenuta di Arceno), France (Château Lassègue), Australia (Yangarra Estate Vineyards), and Chile (Viña Calina).
February
Mas de Daumas Gassac is a French winery located in the wine region Languedoc in the southeast of France, in the commune of Aniane. The wine produced here is classified as Vin de Pays de l'Hérault due to its use of grape varieties outside specifications of its AOC. Despite its modest designation and location, the vineyard has received widespread acknowledgement, described by the The Times to taste like a “Latour” and by the French magazine Gault-Milau as the "Lafite Rothschild of the Languedoc-Roussillon", it is frequently referred to as the Grand Cru of the Languedoc.
On land sold by the Daumas family to a former glove manufacturer Aimé Guibert, wines were first planted at this vineyard in 1974. Following the recommendation of Henri Enjalbert, a professor of Geography at the University of Bordeaux, whose assessment of the terroir determined the microclimate to be uncharacteristically favourable for cultivation of wine in such a warm region, the first vintage was produced in 1978 with the assistance of the oenologist Emile Peynaud. Aimé Guibert has since featured in the documentary film Mondovino, stating that "wine is dead".
March
Alban Vineyards is a California wine estate producing various Rhône style blends and varietal wine, located in Edna Valley in the southern corner of San Luis Obispo County.
Starting in 1985, John Alban planted grapes for other people until he bought an estate in 1989. With a focus on creating wines made from Rhône Valley varietals, Alban came to be a pioneer of the Rhone Rangers movement, and is considered one of the most influential American Rhone producers.
On beginning to grow Viognier, Alban stated "I almost single-handedly doubled the world's acreage," referring to a time when its cultivation was reduced to 50 acres in two areas of the Rhône Valley, Condrieu and Château-Grillet. Alban's work, along with that of Josh Jensen of Calera Wine Company in San Benito County, helped to significantly expand plantings of Viognier in California at a time when the varietal was near extinction.
April
Château La Tour Blanche, or La Tour-Blanche, is a winery is located in the commune of Bommes within the region of Graves, which produces a sweet white wine ranked as Premier Cru Classé (French, “First Growth”) of Sauternes wine in the original Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855. Uniquely among classed growth wineries, the estate is the property of the French state, and the site of the La Tour Blanche School of Viticulture and Oenology.
Records date the estate's origins to the 18th century, and connect them to Jean Saint-Marc du Latourblanche, treasurer-general to Louis XIV. Following the French Revolution, the estate was owned by Pierre Pécherie, but a later owner, the German Frederic Focke raised the reputation of the winery, and was for a period credited with bringing the tradition of sweet white wine to Sauternes from his Rhine origins. After the rewarding outcome of the 1855 Classification and Focke's death, the estate was eventually acquired by Daniel "Osiris" Iffla who among several patrotic acts, left in his testament La Tour Blanche to the State upon his death in 1907, on the condition it would become an agricultural college. From 1911, the La Tour Blanche School of Viticulture and Oenology has been responsible for education and training of wine industry professionals, as well as running La Tour Blanche as a classed winery.
May
Twisted Oak Winery is a family-owned boutique winery in Vallecito, California specializing in wine made from grape varieties native to the Mediterranean regions of western Europe. The winery is located on a hilltop at 2280 ft (695 m) above sea level in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and most of the grapes for the wines are sourced from nearby vineyards in Calaveras County. The winery name and logo design are derived from a California Blue Oak tree on the property.
The winery was founded by Jeff and Mary Stai, and opened in 2001. The Stais hired Scott Klann, a native of Murphys, who had over a decade of experience in the Calaveras County wine industry, as Twisted Oak's first winemaker. The original 10 acre (4 ha) vineyard on the 120 acre (48.5 ha) property was planted to Tempranillo, Grenache, and Graciano, grape varieties native to the Mediterranean regions of France, Spain and Portugal. The decision to plant Iberian grape varieties, uncommon in California, was in part due to a dinner that Stai and Klann attended at a Spanish restaurant in which they tried many Spanish wines that impressed them.
The winery's first vintage was 2002, when they produced 10 different wines, all made from purchased grapes. The wines were produced in a custom crush facility at the Olde Lockeford Winery in the town of Lockeford, California. The first vintage began a tradition of naming wines with exclusively non-alphabetic symbols (in a style often used to replace profane words in written English), such as the *%#&@!, a red blend of Mourvedre, Syrah, and Grenache grapes, and the %@#$!, a white wine made of Marsanne and Roussanne grapes (introduced two years later). The unusual wine names were inspired from the owner and winemaker's frustration at being unable to come up with a good name for the red blend. The unique wine labels have been the subject of doctoral research in communications.
June
Penfolds is an Australian wine producer, founded in 1844 by Dr. Christopher Rawson Penfold, an English physician who emigrated to Australia. It is one of Australia's oldest wineries.
Penfold was a believer in the medicinal benefits of wine and before emigrating to Australia, obtained some vine cuttings from France. Arriving in Australia, he set up in practice at Magill on the eastern outskirts of Adelaide, South Australia and planted vines around his stone cottage which he called The Grange after his wife, Mary's, former home. Initially, Penfold produced fortified wines, for his patients in the style of sherry and port. As demand for the wines increased the winery was expanded.
Mary Penfold assumed the running of the winery after the death of her husband in 1870. After Mary retired in 1884 her daughter Georgina and son-in-law Thomas Hyland took over the day to day running of the winery. The Penfold family continued to operate the business very successfully and although the company became public in 1962 the Penfold family remained in control until 1976.
During the 1940's and 1950's the company changed its focus to table wines to accommodate changing tastes. This led to experiments by Penfolds' chief winemaker, Max Schubert which would eventually lead to the production of Penfolds' and Australia's most famous wine, Grange Hermitage, later renamed simply Grange.
Control of Penfolds passed to Tooth & Co, a brewer based in New South Wales in 1976, to the Adelaide Steamship Co in 1982 and then in 1990 to S.A.Brewing which became part of Southcorp, an Australian conglomerate. Since 2005, the Southcorp wine brands and wineries have been owned by the Foster's Group. Penfolds currently operates two wineries; at Magill, near Adelaide and at Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley.
July
Schloss Johannisberg is a winery in the Rheingau wine-growing region in Germany, that has been making wine for over 900 years. The winery is most noted for its claim to have "discovered" late harvest wine.
A mountain on the north bank of the River Rhine near Mainz has been associated with the Church and with winemaking since the Dark Ages, when Ludwig der Fromme ("Louis the Pious") made 6000 litres of wine during the reign of Charlemagne. In 1100, Benedictine monks completed a monastery on the Bischofsberg ("Bishop's") mountain, having identified the site as one of the best places to grow vines. 30 years later they built a Romanesque basilica in honour of John the Baptist, and the hill became known as Johannisberg (John's mountain). It was constructed according to similar floor plans as its mother monastery the Collegiate Saint Alban ante Mainz. As such the monsatery was a prime target for the Anabaptists in the Peasants' War of 1525, and it was destroyed.
In 1716 Konstantin von Buttlar, Prince-Abbot of Fulda bought the estate from Lothar Franz von Schönborn, started construction of the baroque palace, and in 1720 planted Riesling vines, making it the oldest Riesling vineyard in the world. The estate changed hands several times during the Napoleonic Wars, but in 1816 the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II, gifted it to the great Austrian statesman Prince von Metternich.
The buildings were almost completely destroyed by air raids on Mainz in 1942, and after the war took twenty years to reconstruct. The estate remains in the hands of the Oetker family today.
August
Blasted Church Vineyards, located in Okanagan Falls, British Columbia is a Canadian Winery. Situated in the heart of British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, Blasted Church produces over 10,000 cases of wine per year.
In 2002, Proprietors Evelyn & Chris Campbell bought the 2 year old 17-hectare Prpich Hills Winery on the road between Okanagan Falls and Penticton. The property once housed a wooden church. In 1929, the church was dismantled, via a controlled dynamite explosion which loosened the nails, and reassembled in the center of Okanagan Falls where it now stands. The transformation or Prpich Hills in Blasted Church started with creative label redesigns by Vancouver designer Bernie Hadley-Beauregard of the design firm Brandever.
Blasted Church's first winemaker, Frank Supernak, died unexpectedly during the first harvest, prompting many other local vintners to assist the Campbell family in completing the production of finished wine. The images of these winemakers now adorn the bottle labels at Blasted Church. In 2004, Blasted Church became the first Okanagan vintners to produce all of their wines with screw-top bottle caps.
September
Groot Constantia is the oldest wine estate in South Africa and national monument in the suburb of Constantia in Cape Town, South Africa. "Groot" in Dutch translates as "great" (as in large) in English.
Groot Constantia was established in 1684 by the VOC Governor of the Cape of Good Hope Simon van der Stel, and was used to produce wine as well as other fruit and vegetables and cattle farming. Following Van der Stel's death in 1712 the estate was broken up and sold in three parts.
In 1778 the portion of the estate surrounding Van der Stel's Cape Dutch-style manor house was sold to the Cloete family, who planted extensive vineyards and extended and improved the mansion by commissioning the architect Thibault. The house remained in the possession of the Cloete family until 1885, during which period the estate became famous for its production of Constantia dessert wine.
In 1885 Groot Constantia was purchased by the government of the Cape of Good Hope and was used as an experimental wine and agricultural estate. Following a disastrous fire in 1925 the house was extensively restored. In 1969 the manor house became part of the South African Cultural History Museum, and in 1993 the estate passed into the ownership of the Groot Constantia Trust. The exhibition in the house is managed by Museums of Cape Town, and is particularly focused on rural slavery and the life of slaves during the early Cape colonial period.
October
Abreu Vineyards is a cult winery in Napa Valley, California founded by well-known viticulturist David Abreu.
David Abreu, a third-generation rancher from St. Helena, California and graduate of the Viticulture and Enology program at UC Davis, founded Abreu Vineyards in 1980 after working briefly at Caymus Vineyards. That year he formed David Abreu Vineyard Management, working with pioneering winemaker Richard Forman to manage ranching operations at Inglenook Winery.
Abreu and Forman became friends and traveled frequently to Bordeaux, where they observed French winemaking operations. They brought back French rootstock, trellis designs, and Bordelais planting and farming techniques.
Abreu's fame spread as Other wineries hired Abreu's company to plant and manage ranching operations. By 1999 he was considered the premier viticulturist for premium grapes in Napa Valley. Abreu's company has raised grapes for some of the most respected wineries in Napa and Sonoma Valleys, and in 2006 Abreu was hired to replant vineyards at Screaming Eagle Winery and Vineyards.
Wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr. included Abreu in his 1998 list of the "most influential wine personalities of the last 20 years."
November
Orlando Wines is a famous Australian winery located in the small township of Rowland Flat, between Lyndoch and Tanunda, in South Australia's Barossa Valley wine-growing region. Orlando Wines was the valley's first commercial winery. It is currently part of Pernod Ricard Pacific, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pernod Ricard. It is best known as the producer of Jacob's Creek, Orlando's main wine brand, which was first released in 1976.
In 1847 Bavarian immigrant Johann Gramp planted his first grape vines on the banks of the then recently named Jacob's Creek. The vines flourished and led to the production of their first vintage in 1850, making around 12 dozen bottles of hock style white wine from one small octave barrel.
The winery now produces some of Australia's most successful export wines, with some 80% of sales being made in 50+ export markets and having the leading brand in the UK, New Zealand and Asia. Orlando Wines was named Australian Exporter of the Year in 1993 and won the Maurice O'Shea Award in 1994.
A modern visitor's centre and wine tasting cellar, known as the Jacob's Creek Visitor's Centre, was opened in 2002, at which time a time capsule was buried to be opened in 2027.
December
Chateau Montelena is a Napa Valley winery most famous for winning the white wine section of the historic Judgement of Paris wine competition. Chateau Montelena's Chardonnay was in competition with nine other wines from France and California. All 11 judges awarded their top scores to either the Chardonnays from Chateau Montelena or Chalone Winery, another Californian winery.
In 1882, entrepreneur Alfred Loving Tubbs bought 254 acres of land just north of Calistoga at the foot of Mount Saint Helena. Tubbs had made a fortune from the rope business during the Gold Rush, and knew the area from visits to the White Sulphur Springs Resort nearby. He planted vines, and by 1896 Chateau Montelena was the seventh largest winery in the Napa Valley.
However, winemaking ceased at the Chateau with the onset of Prohibition in the United States and afterwards the Tubbs sold grapes but did not make wine.
In 1958 the Tubbs family sold the Chateau to Yort Wing Frank, a Chinese electrical engineer, and his wife Jeanie, who were looking for a retirement home. The Franks created a garden in the style of their homeland, and excavated Jade Lake.
In 1968, Lee and Helen Paschich bought the property, and brought in as partners lawyer James L. Barrett and property developer Earnest Hahn. Jim Barrett replanted the vineyard and installed winemaking equipment in the historic buildings and it began producing wines again in 1972.
Four years later, the Chateau Montelena Chardonnay 1973 won first place in the Judgment of Paris. A bottle of that vintage is in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
